Cost, accessibility, and communication are identified barriers to the implementation of new projects (White et al., 2021). The main speedbump that I found when implementing my problem change was that I thought the nonpharmacological sleep measures pamphlet that I presented for staff education could be uploaded to the patient portal immediately. In actuality, the IT department person who approved adding it to the patient portal did not communicate to me that any updates to the system are completed quarterly. The pamphlet will be on the portal on August 1, 2022. The reason I wanted to have it accessible on the portal was so that patients could access it anytime. The way I went about managing this obstacle was that I put a copy of the pamphlet on the shared drive for the prescribers to access. I also printed out five pamphlets per provider to have on hand to cover the few weeks that it is not on the portal.
Another speedbump that I encountered while putting together the pamphlet was the nonpharmacological sleep recommendations that I thought would be most beneficial are not free or covered by insurance. For example, for sleep assistance using a fan for white noise or using lavender to promote sleepiness are some of the first recommendations. While fans and electricity are not free, I found an app on my phone that makes white noise. If feasible for the patient, there are phone applications available that the patient could use to track their sleep and mental health (Aledavood, et al., 2019). This could help the patient and the provider figure out the core problem behind insomnia if it was not clear and determine the impact of sleep monitoring on improving patients’ quality of life and clinically meaningful outcomes. This is assuming that the patients have a phone to download apps. I also found lavender-scented spray and lotion at the dollar store that way if a patient decides to use it the prescriber will be able to recommend this option at a minimal cost. Melatonin is also one of the recommendations that can be found at the dollar store.
Time is another speedbump in the road for this project. There are so many things I would like to do but must focus on what I can achieve. My preceptor has trusted me and provided insight into teaching this tertiary education. Having trust is a cornerstone for professionalism and integrity (Bond-Barnard et al., 2018). If I was at this facility for a longer period, I would look at finding funding through local grants for gift cards to cover the cost of the interventions. The facility already has a bus ticket system in place so transportation to shop for the suggested items would not be an issue.
Being prepared for the unexpected is a sign of a strong leader. I have qualities of friendliness and assertiveness as a transformational leader should have to lead a project to completion (Hensel & Visser, 2018). I have been fortunate to have a supportive preceptor this term who has a high level of expectation and trust that the project will be successful. I am sure more pitfalls and speed bumps will happen as this quarter progresses, but I think keeping an open mind and communicating concerns early on will help squash the problems quickly. If the problems can not be resolved, I am open to being flexible and looking at alternatives that I can implement if feasible.
References
Aledavood, T., Torous, J., Triana Hoyos, A. M., Naslund, J. A., Onnela, J. P., & Keshavan, M. (2019). Smartphone-based tracking of sleep in depression, anxiety, and psychotic disorders. Current psychiatry reports, 21(7), 1-9.
Bond-Barnard, T. J., Fletcher, L., & Steyn, H. (2018). Linking trust and collaboration in project teams to project management success. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business.
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